by Dave Batista
Drew Brees, the NFL quarterback, was in there rehabbing his shoulder. He’d been playing with the San Diego Chargers but I think had just entered free agency, so there were guys down there trying to recruit him. It seemed like every pro team was in there kissing his ass. We gave him a bit of ribbing for that. Drew’s a good dude; I wish him the best. Some of the other football guys I hung with were Freddie Mitchell, who used to play for the Philadelphia Eagles, and Will Demps, who at the time was playing with the Baltimore Ravens and now is with the New York Giants. Both those guys are great guys.
Get a bunch of jocks telling stories, and it makes for an entertaining day. Then guys get to ragging on each other, and man, that’s pretty funny, too. It takes a little of the pain away from the work you have to do to get back in shape.
I met Charles Barkley, the basketball legend, while I was in Birmingham. Barkley used to train at a Gold’s Gym there. I was there working on some of the cardio equipment upstairs. This huge guy on a stationary bike started waving at me, telling me to come on over. So all right, I walked over. I didn’t realize who it was until I was about three feet away. Then I recognized him and I immediately turned into a little kid. I can’t tell you how many times I saw Barkley on TV when he was with the Sixers or later with the Suns. I actually admired him for getting into fights, sticking up for his team.
He started talking to me like he knew me. I mean, I’ve always been a big Barkley fan, but to have it turn out that he was a Batista fan—that’s just very surreal. Very cool.
ALONZO MOURNING
Speaking of Charles Barkley, I met another of my basketball heroes thanks to wrestling, though I can’t say that he was much of a Batista fan. In fact, his idol turned out to be Triple H.
The player was Alonzo Mourning. He’s best known now as a star for the Miami Heat in the NBA, but back at the end of the eighties and early nineties he was starting for the Georgetown Hoyas, then as now one of the country’s top college basketball teams. Seeing as how I was from Washington, D.C., Georgetown University was my local team and I was a big fan of theirs and of Mourning.
Hunter and I did a celebrity pool tournament at the tail end of 2004. The only thing I remember about the tournament was the fact that Alonzo was in the celebrity tournament, too. I, of course, turned into a little kid. I was just about jumping up and down. “Man, it’s great, it’s Alonzo Mourning, yeah!” I was thinking to myself.
Anyway, Alonzo saw us and recognized Hunter. He came over and started talking to him, telling him he’s a big fan, the whole thing. Hunter thanked him and they started talking.
I have to admit, I was kind of jealous. Here’s this guy I absolutely idolized, and he was talking to my friend for a good half hour and pretty much ignoring me. I just kind of stood there, taking it all in.
So, they’re talking and talking. Finally, Hunter says good-bye to him and we all move on. As we’re walking away, Hunter turns to me and says, “Who was that, anyway?”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I asked.
“No. Who was it? Really. Who was it?”
MR. POTATO NOSE
That sort of thing happened a lot that night. People would come up to Hunter and he had no idea who they were. He has tunnel vision sometimes. If it doesn’t involve wrestling, he doesn’t know about it.
We were at that pool tournament the day after I’d broken my nose in Seattle. One of the pro pool players there was Jeanette Lee, who is among the best women pool professionals in the country. I had a huge crush on her—still do. Anyway, I got to meet her but I was so embarrassed because my nose looked like I’d been on a weeklong coke binge. It was a real potato. I was absolutely mortified, meeting this girl who was the hottest thing in the world. I was married and wouldn’t have asked for a date anyway, but I still would have liked to at least look, uh, human. Instead of Mr. Potato Nose.
“HE’S STILL HOT”
Hunter has all sorts of fans across the world. As a matter of fact, my mom is a great fan. She calls him a living legend.
Mom also loves Rey Mysterio and she was a big Eddie Guerrero fan before he died. She likes Vito. One time we were doing a shoot or an interview or something down near my house, and she made us all dinner. She was going on about how handsome Vito was; I thought I might have to keep my eye on her. And Kennedy—she was saying just the other day that she felt real bad when people were booing him at one of the shows.
In 2006, she came with us to a party at WrestleMania where a lot of old-time wrestlers as well as current stars were. She went up to Mae and Moolah—that’s Mae Young and Lillian Ellison, who is better known as the Fabulous Moolah—and had me pose in a picture with them, because they were among her all-time favorite “girl” wrestlers, as she calls them. And she still talks about meeting Sherri Martel at the Hall of Fame dinner.
“She hasn’t aged a day,” she whispered after she met her.
But probably the most fun for me was introducing her to Ric Flair. She’s been a fan of Ric’s for many years. So when we were all at a party together, I decided to take her on over and introduce her to him.
“Mom, I want you to meet somebody,” I said, and I kind of steered her toward Ric.
Her mouth dropped open. Ric was his very charming self.
“Oh, what an honor!” said my mom. “I’m a big fan.”
“Oh, no, the honor is all mine,” said Ric.
“No, it’s not! You don’t know.”
“No, really, the honor’s all mine.”
“No, really, you don’t understand!”
They went back and forth like that for a while. I had to do my best not to burst out laughing.
“You know, he’s still hot,” said my mom later. “He’s still hot.”
“I WANTED TO SLAP HER”
Taking my mother to a show is a lot of fun. I’m just sorry I can’t sit out there and watch her. But I get reports.
A lot of times she’ll go out with signs. One time in San Francisco when I was still on Raw she got in trouble. I guess the local security people didn’t realize she was my mom. She had this two-sided sign. One side read “Batista is Raw” and on the other side she wrote “I love Batista.” So they were trying to get her to put it down or move or something because she was blocking the view or a camera.
She told them, “I’m sorry. I was just excited because I was going to see my son wrestle.”
The security people started apologizing all over the place, but she put her sign down anyway.
Of course, if your mom’s in the audience, she may take things a little personally. There’s a story about her being at a show and this woman nearby yelled, “Hey, Batista, when you get old, you’re going to be ugly!”
Supposedly someone had to grab her and keep her from slapping the woman, but my mom says that didn’t happen.
“I wanted to go over and slap her,” she said when I was working on this book. “But I thought, That’s not a very nice thing to do. It wouldn’t reflect very well: Batista’s mom being dragged out of the place because somebody said when he got old he’s going to be ugly. I wanted to say we come from a really pretty good-looking gene pool. I didn’t, though. But I did want to whip her. I truly did.”
That’s her version and I believe her. But if I were you and I was sitting near her at a show, I’d be careful what I said.
FAMILY BUSINESS
I have a very supportive family. I can’t say enough about my mom, how really strong she is and how still, after all these years, she’s a big part of my life, and the lives of my children and grandchildren.
Photo 23
Michael at his high school graduation.
I haven’t had a chance yet to mention my half brother, Michael, my father’s son from his second marriage.
I was worried about this kid when I was younger. My father and his second wife were kind of stiff and anal so I thought Michael might turn out to be a snooty little prick. Their house was always spotless, they were so uptight about everything. They were a typical yu
ppie couple. They made me want to just stick my finger down my throat. When he was little they’d dress him up just so, make sure his shirt was always tucked perfectly in his pants, have his hair combed every second. If they gave him a cookie, he always had to have a napkin with it and couldn’t get crumbs on anything or make any kind of mess without getting in trouble. I really did think he was going to be an anal prick.
But the opposite is true. He’s amazingly cool and easygoing. He’s got it all. He’s smart; he’s athletic. His high school football team, which he was a part of, was Virginia state football champs.
When Michael was around one, maybe even a little older, even though I wasn’t living at the house anymore I would go over and babysit for him. He was such a cute kid. Right off the bat I loved him. Unfortunately, we drifted apart because of the problems I had with my father. There came a point where I hadn’t talked to my dad and his family for so long that they told me Michael didn’t believe he had a big brother—I think he was convinced they were making me up, because he hadn’t seen me in so long. But somewhere in there I started going over again and seeing him.
We really started getting close as he got older. I think our sister, Donna, really encouraged it. She had stayed in touch with Michael as he was growing up and really let me know I should, too. When he was in his later years of high school we started hanging out a little bit. He’s a social kid—he’s so social he can hang out with my friends.
Which ended up not being a good thing: I don’t know if I should give him up, but he’d ask some of my friends to buy him kegs and they’d do it. He had the neighborhood party house for a while. He was even hanging out with us in nightclubs when he was seventeen, eighteen, holding his own with my friends. That’s pretty impressive—my friends are veterans in the nightclub scene, they’ve been around for years and years.
I remember one party I had for the boys—I try and throw parties for everyone at WWE every time we’re in D.C. for a show—and I invited my brother. It just so happened that he ran into a girl there who used to go to the same high school that he did. She was a few years older, and there with a friend, but he ended up with both of these girls on the couch.
At one point I looked over and he had his arms around both of them. They were snuggling a little bit, and maybe there was a little bit of kissing going on. I was so happy my face was glowing. I said to my wife, “Look at my little brother. He’s just mackin’.”
“Yeah, just like his big brother,” she said with a not very nice attitude, and kind of walked away. Which kind of tells you where my marriage was heading at that point.
Michael’s in college now, with a real bright future ahead of him. He’s the kid I would have dreamed of being when I was younger: successful, athletic, personable. I’m just so proud of him. I’m very proud to call him my brother.
MY GIRLS
As I mentioned earlier, I have two daughters by my first wife—the only good things that came out of that marriage. I love them both very much. At the moment that I’m writing this, one is sixteen and the other is fourteen.
Three years ago, I went to court to get custody of them. I was alarmed by what was going on with them and their mother. She’d become verbally abusive and wasn’t providing, in my mind, a very good atmosphere for them to grow up in. I decided that I had to try and give them a steady life, some sort of direction and consistency. I owed them at least that, as their father.
I’ll spare you the real ugliness of the court process. It’s not easy for a guy to get custody of his kids. There’s still a pretty big prejudice against fathers in that respect, regardless of whether they’re celebrities or not. And in my case, having a job as a professional wrestler didn’t exactly help my cause. A guy standing in front of several thousand fans and asking them whether to pulverize an opponent or not doesn’t exactly project a nurturing image. We all had to go through pretty extensive psychological evaluations before any decision was made.
I should mention the attorney who helped make my dream of winning back my children a reality. Her name is Rebecca Masri and she is awesome. I owe her a lot. She looks like a sweet little Jewish girl until she enters the courtroom. Then she morphs into a Louisiana pit bull.
The whole court thing tends to focus on the parents rather than the well-being of the kids, or at least it can seem that way. Their mother tried to make out what a bad person I was, turn me into Mr. Evil, just the most horrible person in the world. I was fortunate that in the end, the courts considered the situation fully and decided that I could provide a good atmosphere for them to grow in.
Athena, the youngest, still lives with me. I have to give her a lot of credit. She’s constantly on the principal’s honor roll. She’s class president. She’s starting a really prestigious prep school next year. When she was a little girl, she said she wanted to go to Harvard. Now she seems a little more focused on UC Berkeley. Whatever school she chooses, I know she’s going to succeed there. She’s got her head on so straight it’s scary. I truly believe that young woman is going to achieve great things in her life. I am really going to enjoy watching her grow. I’m so proud of her, I can’t begin to put it into words.
It’s heartbreaking to say this, but my older daughter, Keilani, and I have really drifted apart. It seems odd, because we really had an early bond. I used to take her with me to work out at the gym when she was still in a baby carriage. Some of the happiest moments of my life, especially in those days, came when I was with her. It’s funny: all those old clichés about not appreciating what you have until it’s gone really turn out to be true.
On the other hand, my youngest daughter and I never really had a lot of that time to be together when she was tiny. I was already out of the house when she was a baby. Even though I was always close by and made a huge effort to be in both my daughters’ lives, I didn’t live with Athena when she was a child. I thought that would have made a bigger difference than it has.
But it’s just the opposite. Athena and I have a very strong, solid bond. She has absolutely no communication with her mom; she won’t speak to her, let alone have anything to do with her. My older daughter really worships her mother.
JACOB
Keilani got pregnant during some of these court troubles. To make a long story short, we agreed to let her stay with her mom until after she had the baby. Then we’d go back to court. We had moved to Florida, so we had to travel up to Virginia, where they lived, to get everything settled. After the baby was born and the court made its decision, she moved down to Tampa with us.
My grandson, Jacob, is really an awesome little kid. I know all proud fathers and grandfathers will say the same thing about their children, but my guy is definitely special. You see his little smile and you melt. He’s just a special little boy.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before my daughter was in trouble again. The court gave us custody of Jacob, hoping to provide him with a little consistency and security in his upbringing.
It takes two to make a child, and Jacob’s father was a young man named Ricky. Ricky tried hard to be a good dad. The only negative thing about Ricky was that, though a couple of years older than my daughter, he was still pretty young. But he was a good kid at heart. He wanted to be in the baby’s life, and he was willing to do whatever it took to be there. You have to admire a young man with that kind of responsibility and desire to be a father.
We helped him move down to Florida and found him a place to live, even got him a car. We gave him and my daughter some commonsense rules, including some about sex—basically, we didn’t want them to create another child. I don’t think for a minute that our rules were very popular, but they were necessary.
Unfortunately, soon Ricky and my daughter started having really bad problems. She had started a new school and, I think, was interested in another boy. You can imagine the mental trauma.
Ricky started pushing the rules and doing things that he really shouldn’t have been doing. But he started really flipping out when my daughter want
ed to split up with him for the new boy. He came over one night and locked himself in the room with her, and threatened to take the baby away.
I wasn’t there, but my mom was, and she banged on the door and yelled at him to open up. Eventually, they called me and I talked to him on the phone. I wasn’t very nice—I was pretty much an asshole—but I was trying to protect my daughter and grandson. I was afraid that he was acting psycho.
Finally, things calmed down. Angie was there and helped. I told Ricky, “We’ll do anything to help you be a father, but we have to have rules.” He wasn’t ever allowed to disrespect my mother, or to come over the house when I wasn’t home. I told him straight, the reason was that I was afraid he wanted to take the baby.
Unfortunately, he decided he wanted to move back to Virginia. I can understand the trauma and anger he was going through at the time, so it’s hard to blame him. He needed some separation from my daughter, and that meant he had to leave his son, too. That part of the decision had to be very, very tough for him. It must have really hurt. He was the one changing diapers, playing with him, feeding him—a lot more than my daughter did. Before things became such a big problem, Ricky would take Jacob on overnight visits to his apartment. He was such a good dad. Anyone could see how much he really loved his son.
But he did what he had to do. He moved back to Virginia. And not too long after that—just a few weeks, it’s all a blur now—I got a call while I was waiting to make a connection at an airport. Ricky had died in a car accident.
God.
I have tears in my eyes as I’m writing this. It was so unfair. He was such a good dad, and had so much potential in life. And the flip side is the loss for Jacob. He’s just never going to know his dad.
It breaks my heart.
FUNERAL
At Ricky’s funeral, people were given a chance to speak. Not a lot of people had seen Ricky with Jacob and I wanted to just tell everybody how much he really loved his little boy. I never stood up and said anything because a lot of people blamed me for chasing Ricky out of Florida.